For the first time in history three generations of employees are working side by side. Baby Boomers met Generation X and now both are confronting GenY and scratching their heads. This seems rather silly since at one time Boomers and GenXers were the whippersnappers. Woodstock and Boy George anyone? So bring on the GaGa and let's have a party!

Welcome back to our series, “The Ten-Minute-Job-Search”. We’ve designed it to spare you from the self-harm and guilt that comes when time gets away from you and your job hunt. So just when you’re about to shut your hand in that drawer to atone just read on!

Here's a little pick me up for those times when the job search just feels sucky. Open your resume and save as another file. I like to call them Play files. Imagine the job you’re going for, maybe it’s your dream job, the job you want right now or an open position you’ve found that you’re going to pursue. Using job boards and company websites can give you great job titles and descriptions. At the start of your resume work history simply add the job title and paste the job description below. Re-format to fit the rest of the resume. Embellish each job duty as if you were responsible for it and totally rocked it. For instance:

Assistant Account Manager-Super Duper Ad Agency

Manage company web site with daily copy updates. Contributed new section highlighting company employees.

Add the rest.

Take a long look, imagine this is your new job and you’ve just updated your resume to include it. Sure this is a bit of fakery and it may seem silly but sometimes just imagining your preferred outcome (and in this case actually viewing it) can help you reach that goal! Don’t give up!

Looking for a job doesn’t always have to be an all-day, um, job. There are things you can do in just a few minutes that will take the edge off the anxiety when you might not have time for a deeper commitment. Here are five things to choose from that you can do in ten minutes to keep your momentum going.

So your fledgling network is off the ground and humming. You’re adding people as you go and learning how LinkedIn works. One of the really useful parts of LinkedIn is that it will continually guide you on building your profile. Listen to it and do what it says, paying close attention to the headline and summary sections.

I was at a marketing communications breakfast presentation and talking with a friend who also happens to be a total rock star. He said something that really stuck with me, “If you need to start networking it’s probably too late.”

This applies to college seniors and recent graduates as much as it does to anyone already in the workforce. Second semester of your senior year is NOT the time to think about starting your network. You’re going to need to make contact, establish relationships and start a dialogue if you want any kind of network to pay off. And yes, you don’t know that many people in the profession you’ve chosen for yourself but unless you’re graduating from a Tibetan monastery you do know people.

So start early, add often and use it. Don’t let the thing die just because you got Netflix.

Are you derailing your career before it’s even begun? On the outside do you look like a gung-ho job seeker, sending out resumes, networking with a vengeance and plotting world domination while on the inside (and in reality) you’re hesitating, procrastinating and really only plotting your next Facebook post? It happens a lot more than you think and one reason can be sheer size of scope.

Once there was a little sentence that no one noticed. It was bland and boring and sort of sad. It lay on a resume just hoping to be noticed. People read it and then went on with their lives, never remembering what it said or even who wrote it. It was a lonely little sentence and when it finally admitted it needed help (for admitting you need help is the first step) it went looking for an active verb or two to turn its life around. It discovered an active verb list in the land of Internet and began to add them to itself. It ventured out and invited more active verbs to join it.

We are proud to debut a new blog series, "How I Stopped Worrying and Got the Job", guest posts from past workshop attendees, new acquaintances and other clever job seekers who used their noggins and landed their first job.

Jacklyn Cremer attended one of our first AfterSchool Career Workshops sessions and graduated from KU with a Bachelors in Marketing and now has a full-time job in account services at ER Marketing. More about her job search can be found at JacklynCremer.com. This is how she used the Internet to search more than job boards.

“You don’t stand a tinker’s chance of producing successful advertising unless you start by doing your homework. I have always found this extremely tedious, but there is no substitute for it. First study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.” – David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising.

As a marketer searching for a job, I was the product.

The hunt is about finding a job that really fits with what you want to do and will help you to reach your career goals. If you do your homework, then you will find a company, a job description, and a location that fits your interests and skills. When you know everything there is to know about the company and the position, it’s easy to let the company know that you are the right choice for the job!